Elinchrom BXR500 review

While the BXR lights aren’t new to the Elinchrom range, we have never done a review on them. After using the BXR for some time now, we can safely say that these lights tick all the boxes.

Firstly and very importantly in our warm environment is the fact that the BXR are fan cooled. This is only activated when the unit requires cooling, which allows you to continue shooting, unlike other brands which basically have to be turned off to cool down.

The BXR have the very successful Skyport system built into the head. This system allows us to do a number of very handy functions. Foremost it is the radio trigger for the lights, so no more sync cords. Secondly it can turn the modeling lamp on or off. But wait there’s more – we can now control the flash output on individual heads. The ability the change the trigger frequency has been really handy when we have had lights on booms or just on a long stand. You can work with multiple studio setups in the one area & because the receiver is built into the heads, there is need to worry about batteries either.

In the output stakes, it exceeds its competitors with 250w/s and 500w/s – all with 5 stops in tenths of stops variation. The display is also in a digital form so you know exactly where you at with power level – its competitor has a dial which can be difficult to fine tune. One of the ways we judge the quality of a flash is to measure the duration – the faster the flash, the better it is. The flash duration on the BXR500 is 1/1558 of a second, compared to say Brand B, who has 1/900. The other thing we measure is the flashes ability to hold a colour temperature. The BXR500 runs at 5500K with a variation of 200K between highest and lowest output – again, Brand B runs at 5600K with a variation of 300K between highest and lowest output. One last thing, it has a quicker recycle time of 1.13s when compared to 1.3s on its competitor.

Now running cost are not something that we usually talk about when it comes to studio flash, but we think it’s worth a little investigating.

Firstly the cost of the consumables (ie Flash Tube)
The Elinchrom BXR500 plug-in flash tube is $125.00, whereas the Brand B flash tube is $215.00

There is also the cost of accessories like reflectors and softboxes etc.

These costs came from 2 online stores in Australia.

The cost difference in this small sample is just under $1500.00. As you can see the Elinchrom system is less expensive to run and less expensive to setup. You might want to consider this when you are looking at studio flash equipment.

As we were saying, the Elinchrom BXR tick all the boxes:

Workflow always ready to go thanks to the fan cooling
Functionality mainly due to the inbuilt Skyports
Quality Flash Duration, Colour variation and Recycle time
Running costs less expensive consumables and less expensive to setup.

Come in for a demo on this great kit, we are sure you will be impressed.